Ghosts: A Haunting
Unlike your church pastor, the Mind of Christ does not shy away from exploring what some might consider to be taboo or fear-laden topics. This includes spiritual phenomena, including angels, demons, miraculous occurrences, and, for today’s teaching… ghosts.
In the domain of spiritual experience, there’s sort of this overarching rule. And this rule is that with these kinds of experiences or phenomena, there’s often no “proof” but witnesses. So the saying is “no proof, only witnesses.” So, hard-headed unbelievers can continue to deny spiritual reality, but the rest of us silently acknowledge what we believe to be true based on experience and the experiences of others.
My goal today isn’t to convince you of the reality of ghosts but, in the spirit of the season, to offer my perspective on the topic based on both theory and experience. Without relying on pop culture tropes, I’ll share my definition of a ghost and share one of my truly unique and surprising experiences with you. If you make it to the end, I’ll also provide my suggestions.
The idea of a ghost has existed in folklore since time immemorial. Wikipedia defines a ghost as “the soul or spirit of a dead person…that is believed by some people to appear to the living.” Simple enough.
While this is the definition many people are most familiar with thanks to popular culture, I would argue that, in the context of a spiritual Christian worldview, this is not the best or truest definition.
You don’t need to identify as a Christian to believe that our soul or spirit lives on after death in the next realm - the spiritual realm. After life in the body, we shift states and prepare for our eternal destiny based on the condition of our soul. This is our destiny. Paul tells us, “our citizenship is heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Simply put, our true spirit moves on.
Although popular culture would convince us that ghosts are indeed spirits of the dead visiting from the next life, I will strongly contend that this is not true, although ghosts can manifest very demonic characteristics.
One theory that I believe has more strength is that a ghost is a spirit that, for one reason or another, can’t quite “move on.” This idea strikes closer to what a ghost actually is, but doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head. So, what is a ghost?
A ghost is not the literal soul or spirit of the departed, but an energetic duplicate that gets left behind. This duplicate is not a complete copy of the departed, but a fragment that will often take on certain characteristics of the departed. These tend to be anger, hatred, rage, or sorrow. As such, we watch, hear, or read stories about ghosts that seem to have the capacity to move objects, strike humans, make noises, or cause other chaotic or eerie happenings.
Let me explain more. As a way of analogy, rub your hands together aggressively and you will notice that heat is generated from the friction. A ghost is energy that is created through intense spiritual friction. Spiritual friction is what we feel when we live out of alignment with God’s design for our lives, whether consciously or not. Intense singular or chronic traumatic events with intense spiritual friction have the potential to generate a ghostly energy that will mimic and adopt the characteristics of the subject. These energies can then become tied to the people, places, or things that were their point of origin. This is why ghosts in folklore are often (but not always) tied to extremely traumatic events and circumstances.
These events can be both brief (an unexpected, traumatic death - producing an enormous amount of spiritual friction) or prevailing (chronic mental and physical abuse/torture).
I’ll share a story from my own experience to illustrate these points.
Years ago, I lived on a lake next to an elderly woman (let’s call her Rose). Rose was a kind enough lady who always seemed to have strange stories about her house - stories I initially believed she was making up for attention. This was before my calling from God, and although I considered myself a Christian, I was completely skeptical and even antagonistic about any spiritual phenomena (including gifts of the Spirit).
Rose shared with me that the lake we lived on had some history. Initially a Shaker settlement, hundreds of years ago some young girls had died when they fell through the ice. Rose shared with me that, at night, she could sometimes hear the laughter of children in her home, balls rolling down the hall, as well as other more malevolent activities like the cabinets opening and cans spilling everywhere.
I remained largely skeptical of this until one day, I came out of my back door to see Rose running over toward me.
“My ceiling collapsed!” she exclaimed. Confused, I asked her what she meant. She took me inside her home, and a quarter of the ceiling had collapsed. My curiosity had piqued.
“Do you think it has anything to do with all this old stuff?” she asked. The room had a collection of antiques.
“I’m not sure,” I said. Rose was convinced that the spirits had caused the collapsed roof. Curiously, the insurance adjuster was surprised by what happened based on the structural integrity of the rest of the home.
I still had a hard time caring about the seeming haunting in Rose’s home until one day, a few months later, I got a text from her asking me to come over. I walked into Rose’s living room…
“Look at this!” she exclaimed. She pulled her shirt down her shoulder to show a red claw mark down her back, like a three-taloned hand had scraped from her shoulder to her mid-back.
“I was sitting here watching TV, and this ceramic pig just lifted and flew across the room!” A small ceramic animal sat just a few feet away on the floor. “Then, I felt something hit my shoulder, and this happened!”
I still felt Rose was making all of this up for my attention, but I guess I wanted to be as helpful as I could. I opened up my mind to the possibility that this was indeed a “haunting.” I decided we should simply pray and I crossed my fingers that God would do the rest…
A few days passed, and I ran into Rose in the yard again. “Any change?” I asked, hoping for the best.
“No. It’s been getting worse. I hear voices and something tried to pull me out of bed the other night!”
I winced. I had assumed that God would take care of everything, but Rose still seemed to be experiencing this haunting. Exasperated, I told her, “Look, I’ll just come and spend the night in your spare room and I’ll confront whatever is in your house.”
Unfortunately, I said it before I realized that I was actually afraid that Rose had been telling me the truth all along. Truth be told, I was secretly anxious to confront what may be a real ghost in Rose’s home. I had no experience with this!
I stomped back to my house and sat down to pray, hoping I could muster enough spiritual power and energy to confront whatever-it-was in Rose’s home. In the stillness, I heard a gentle voice say to me, “it’s unforgiveness.” I wasn’t sure what this meant, but I knew I should talk to Rose about it. Once again, I found myself in Rose’s living room.
“Unforgiveness could be causing this kind of spiritual activity,” I offered. “Is there anyone close to you in your life that you need to forgive?”
Rose got quiet for a moment, sighed and then opened up to me about her late husband. She confided to me that he was an angry, abusive man who would strike her, lock her in their room, and swear at her. I learned that the final few years of his life were a living nightmare for Rose.
“Have you been able to forgive him at all?” I risked asking.
“No,” she said. “I curse his name when I lie down at night. I still hate him. I’ll never forgive him,” she continued adamantly.
“I think the spiritual activity will stop if you do,” I said.
“I can’t,” she replied.
“Well, I know that if you can just give 1% in your heart, God will do the rest for you.” It sounded very corny but I felt like it may be the key for solving this mystery.
“Ok,” she said.
Together we prayed a simple prayer for forgiveness, for feelings to be released, and for peace in the home. Rose said very little as I left and made my way to my house. I honestly didn’t know what would happen next. I just hoped all this would be over.
The next night, I swung by Rose’s house to check on her. She came to the door in tears. She looked like a complete mess - like she had been through hell and back. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you did to me. I’ve been crying all day!” she said, as she blew her nose. “I feel awful but better at the same time. I don’t know what you did.”
Intuitively, I recognized that she was getting an emotional and spiritual release. “Just take care of yourself for a few days,” I offered.
Rose never had a problem in her home again.
What can we take away from this story?
Ghostly energies do not adopt a full personality of the deceased, but mimic certain qualities, depending on the nature of their origin.
The prolonged emotional and spiritual friction between Rose and her husband generated a spiritual presence. This presence acted in malice towards Rose, continuing the pattern of trauma that had been established before her husband had passed away.
Directed intention and belief nourish ghostly energies in our realm of experience. Rose’s unforgiveness and directed curses vitalized this presence. This was creating a connection or tether, allowing for tangible manifestation in Rose’s experience. The presence of this entity was further reinforced by Rose’s belief that she was, indeed, dealing with a ghost. When we believe in something, we give it power.
Sometimes, issues like this resolve on their own as we stop giving them so much attention. Ghosts are like fragrances. Occasionally, they will linger if we keep stoking them, but often they will come to an end in time, having lost the source of their constitution.
Rose’s story (night terrors, unusual happenings in her home, etc.) shares many similarities with what may be described as demonic oppression. While I think you could make that argument, demonic activity can sometimes arise much more spontaneously than this. In my experience, demons are also the primary source of mental torment.
This leaves us to address ghosts that are not necessarily malevolent. In these cases, ghosts are more likely tied not to specific people, but to locations or spiritually significant objects. In these instances, here are my suggestions that I have learned through both direct and indirect experience:
Do not interfere in spiritual matters we do not understand. We aren’t ghost hunters, but sometimes we are called to help and aid with very spiritual problems.
Do not be afraid - with God’s help and the name of Jesus, you have everything you need.
Resolution cannot happen without God’s help. Pray.
If you feel activity is tied to a powerful emotion - forgive.
If you feel activity is tied to an object - destroy the object.
If you feel activity is tied to a location or place, pray for a clearing using Jesus’ name.
A simple, well-intentioned prayer of the heart that uses the name of Jesus is often enough for resolution. However, in more advanced cases, an intuitively gifted person can help bring peace by sensing the presence, acknowledging it, speaking to it, and firmly telling it to leave.
Interestingly, those having some sort of experience with these presences sometimes experience a “follow up” dream or coincidental experience, in which the presence or the true spirit of someone appears to them, thanking them for their help.
While this is not an exhaustive guide for understanding and dealing with what are commonly known and experienced as “ghosts,” the principles and ideas I outline here are useful tools for understanding this unusual spiritual phenomenon.
